Here in Portland, ME a lot of people are mad about the grocery bag fee that goes into effect in the spring. I don’t understand why people act like having free bags is their right. Store owners already have to pay for those bags, and cover the cost by raising their prices. I would rather only have to pay for bags I actually use, rather then have every single item in the store marked up. Say I buy just a box of staples, currently I have to pay for a bag, even if I just slip the box in my pocket after checking out and don’t take a bag. By charging for bags as they are used, the prices of every item in the store can drop.
Will they lower their prices now that they’re being reimbursed for the cost of the bags?
People are annoyed because they DO think free bags are a right. Do they still charge you for a bag if you bring your own?
They’ve been charging a nickel a bag for a couple of years here. Well, they’re taxed so it rounds up to 6 cents actually. Most people bring their own.
No, you don’t get charged when you bring your own.
And they most certainly did not lower any prices. I mean, what would the cost be to the grocery store. They probably buy a thousand bags for $10.
Well, there go my free trash-can bags if that catches on in the rest of the state.
I’d love to see how well they’ll be able to enforce it at self-checkout lanes.
Quite easily, by not providing any bags. Go talk to the guy who’s watching the lane if you need bags.
You want to use it, you pay for it. Someone wants to give it to you for free, that’s their prerogative, not your right.
So let’s say I go to the grocery store and buy $50 worth of groceries, and then pay 15 cents for bags. How would I even know if my Capt’n Crunch has been appropriately marked down from $4.254 to $4.248?
This policy has been applied in Alameda County, California. Self checkout lanes aren’t a problem: you just punch in the number of bags you want at the end: Businesses experience smooth implementation of county plastic bag ban
All that said, I’m unaware of any cost/benefit study to back this policy up. Floating plastic in our oceans is a bit of a problem, so I can see banning cheapo plastic bags within say 10 miles of the seashore. But according to the Union of Concerned Scientists the paper/plastic choice is close to a wash: at any rate it isn’t particularly important. Outside of shoreline areas, this looks like a feel-good proposal. Far greener would be to raise the gas tax or even better set up a tradeable emission program for CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
From the consumer’s perspective, they are now charged for something they were not charged for previously - the retailer simply ate the cost as part of its overhead.
It is similar to the reaction you would get if retailers were required, by law, to charge customers for other overhead items they currently provide (in some cases) without charging, as a courtesy to attract customers - for example, parking.
It is not the case that the costs of the products sold in (say) a grocery store are automatically set in lockstep by overhead charges; you will not, of necessity, get cheaper goods because a store charges for bags, or parking. That is an overly simplistic view of how retail pricing works - in reality, it is set by a lot of factors, depending on the pricing strategy employed.
In this case, the “naive” view - that customers are now being charged for someting they were not charged for previously, in what amounts to an (admittedly tiny) tax to encourage good behaviour - is in fact correct; only, the money goes to the retailer, not the government. Like all such consumption taxes, it is inherently regressive (5 cents a bag means nothing to someone well-off, slightly more to someone poor).
You do pay for it – it’s included in the overhead of running the store. That’s why people are asking if they’ll stop paying for it (via lower costs) now that they have to buy them directly.
Anyway, here’s a better idea: Give me my grocery bags for “free” and make up the difference by NOT giving me thirty-seven linear feet of register tape for a three dollar purchase. At least the bags get re-used or recycled. The tape just gets pitched.
Those cheap plastic bags made from almost non-existent material cost about $.01 each. Go ahead and charge me, I can afford 10 cents a week.
As* you yourself* note, we were already paying for the fucking bags. They’re not free. So, seeing as we’re paying for them, damn straight it’s our right to have them.
Except it won’t. Store chains have never gone broke underestimating the apathy of their customers, and in this case it’d have to be pretty darn uppity customers to stop going to that store just because they didn’t reduce the price of each item by 2 whole cents.
So they’ll keep the prices, sell the bags, and keep the profits. I know, 'cause that’s exactly what the minimart down my block did and does. Prices haven’t changed one iota. Bags are extra. It’s a penny ante change for you the customer, but for Mr Walmart it’s millions more every month without actually having to change a blessed thing.
So, super smart.
So, a bald-faced con.
We have had to pay for grocery bags for a few years now where I live (Australia). The stores sell a sturdy type of shopping bag you can buy which can be reused many times or you can buy the cheap plastic ones at the checkout.
As far as I am aware, no prices were reduced to compensate for the store not having to supply the bags but I understand it was more of an environmental issue. It was a local government idea rather than a business one.
What is happening here that is very annoying are the self-serve checkouts. Customers are expected to scan and pack their own goods while a store assistant stands by to assist any klutzes, like me, who mess up the transaction. It is ok when you only have a few items to buy but becomes quite stressful when you have a trolley full of groceries. The stores are all getting on board with this - it saves them wages - and the checkout chicks are as rare as hen’s teeth. Needless to say, the price of groceries remains the same.
Grocery stores used to put people food in boxes that packages came in and this saved the stores from having to deal with getting rid of the boxes. I sometime see people bring in their own boxes . I guess people been getting bags free for so long
they feel they should not have to pay for it. I guess people should pay for the bags b/c it does cost the store $$$ . if people don’t like that like idea they can bring their own bags or boxes.
I’d like to see not only charges for shopping bags, but for all forms and layers of packaging.
They’re not free. It’s overhead. Cost of doing business. Just like your purchase is paying the wages of the cashier and the cost of the lights and the mops they use after closing and register tape and pens at the service counter. You pay for all those things, the store isn’t taking a loss on them. Do you think the accountants have been saying “Whelp, guess we lost another $15 in bags this week” all these years?
“Sorry sir, if you’d like that soup in a can, it’ll be another 3¢”.
At our Shaws they subtract 3 cents for each reusable bag we use.
Why shouldn’t people have to pay for shopping bags?
Why should they? Please show your work.
Oh, you’re paying for those too, don’t you worry.
I live in LA. We’ve been paying for bags for about a year, I think. It’s an environmental issue.
When it first started, several stores I went to gave out free reusable bags. It’s no big deal.